


what cannot be unwritten

by ninata



Category: Fate/Grand Order, Fate/Zero
Genre: Alternate Canon, Angst, Bungled confessions, Fate/Accel Zero Order, Hurt. no comfort, M/M, i really despise using that word but you have to know this isn't happy.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-05-04 05:06:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14585595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninata/pseuds/ninata
Summary: A brief rewrite of Rider and El-Melloi II's farewell at the end of the Fate/Accel Zero Order event. Otherwise canon compliant.





	what cannot be unwritten

Breaths in strands, hanging loosely in the air, draped between their bodies. Lord El-Melloi II pants, magic sizzling from his palm.

Rider drops onto one of his knees. The ground seems to shake at the impact. A hysterical smile breaks against the Lord's face. It trembles.

"It appears it's my loss." Rider murmurs. "You've done well, boy."

It's that change in address— that word that grew familiar, then fleeting, a memory he grasped for, trickling through his fingers like sand.

"You— You recognize me, then." The words struggle to leave his lips.

"Heh. Sorry it took me so long...I had a hunch, but I knew it as soon as we fought."

Forgetting the situation— forgetting the grail, forgetting Ritsuka and Mash, forgetting  _ everything— _ El-Melloi II staggers forward, one foot in front of the other, and drops to his knees before Rider.

"I shouldn't have defeated you." He hisses. "It's only because of Zhuge Liang. If it were only me, I wouldn't have--"

"Hah! Fool."

His hand lifts, and his nail snaps against El-Melloi II's forehead. He flinches, but the wave of relief at the gesture overwhelms any physical pain. The agony that follows it twists in his chest, erasing anything else. El-Melloi II hates it. After all these years, all this painful loneliness, chasing it, but knowing he'd never have again…to have it, only for it to disappear again.

And Rider doesn't even care. He doesn't even think of that. The King of Conquerors has no regard for how this stint to 'entertain' him burns. He never thinks before anything. A selfish bastard, through and through.

Had El-Melloi II not changed? Had he not grown stronger? His shoulders shake.

"Come on. Lift your head up, boy." Rider says, but he can't. His eyes are fixed on the ground, and he feels so small. Defeating him, he knows, was never what he wanted. He feels weaker than if he had lost.

"Rider," He grits his teeth. "...My King. I promised I...you wouldn't know, you wouldn't remember, but I...I promised I'd follow you until…"

A harsh silence.

"Please, I…" Weakness. He shouldn't. "I only wanted to...to see you again, I…"

"You shouldn't cry." Rider's voice is soft. Like speaking to a child. El-Melloi II didn't even realize the tears were falling. "Did it really hurt so much? I've lost control of my strength these days. But you're tougher, now, aren't you?"

"Of course it hurts, you idiot…! But...it’s not that that...hurts, I...I don't— I don't want to— t-to lose you again. Please, I...All this time, I've...I've loved—"

Two huge hands smack against his back. He's pulled into a tight embrace, almost suffocating.

"Don't." Rider's voice rumbles in his chest. "You'll regret it if you do, Waver."

It's like a shock of thunder. His heart tears as it beats so viciously against his ribs, lightning through his limbs.

Nobody had called him that name in years.

Agony. Concentrated agony, prickling under his skin. Maybe if he did finish that sentence, he wouldn't be aching so terribly. How selfish of Rider. How horribly selfish.

He realizes with alarm that Rider's body is fading away. He curses himself again for fighting without holding back, but would Rider have forgiven him if he didn't?

It hurts too much. He was a fool to fall in love with a man who had been dead for thousands of years, and a fool even more never to move on. Someone he spent such a short time with, so trivial, nothing to compare to the conquests, the battles, he was just some  _ boy  _ with no talent or strategy. What did he have? What was he thinking?

What did he think he was going to gain by saying this to a man that wasn't even the one who  _ knew  _ him? Did he think he'd feel better? Gain some closure? Maybe, finally move on?

No, right? He couldn't, right?

He heaves against Rider's armor, tears dripping down his nose. He's so fucking stupid. After all this time, one look at him was enough to send him stumbling back, just as hopeless and scared as he was then.

He doesn't know what more to say. If he says too much, if he spills everything, will he ever forgive himself for letting him go again? If he chronicles how pathetic he was all those years, trying to keep a legend alive in the flick of his fingers, in the severity of his tone, even in the games he played, what better would he feel? He'd just lose him. He'd always lose him, because that was the nature of a Heroic Spirit. The nature of who Rider was. Who El-Melloi II was.

His hands are so warm, but that warmth recedes. Soon, he's left with nothing but the burn of golden light in his retinas. Sand, slipping through his fingers again. Empty hands. Weight, unbearable weight.

It's with great shame the circumstances of the situation come back to him. He wipes the heels of his palms against his eyes, cringing.

"Why...why are you crying?" Comes his own voice. Waver Velvet looks down on him with confusion, pity. "If anyone should be crying, it's me…"

Right. Rider was kind enough to lower his booming voice. The others probably didn't hear their conversation too well, but his actions were telling enough.

"You're right." El-Melloi II forces himself to his feet. "I'm sorry...you had to see me like this. I never thought that...in this lifetime, I'd…"

For how short it was, he wonders if it's worth it. If he'll regret this just as much as he regrets those days, in watching Gilgamesh cut him down, in being too stupid to stop any of it.

The joy in fighting him. The misery in killing him. Knowing even in Chaldea, even in rayshifts, he'd never recapture that. He'd always be longing for something he couldn't have.

He'd always be alone. He’d never see that man, the same one who had given him the strength to change, ever again. The one he swore allegiance to, tears clogging his face like a broken sink, overflowing, over and over again swearing and swearing he’d follow him forever. He'd keep that shred of Rider's cape in a box, and he'd carry that love to his grave. And he'd die a fool, no better than who he was all that time ago.

But even— even in that, even for just a moment. He was Waver Velvet again, stumbling over his words, looking at those impossibly broad shoulders, the waves of red fabric behind him, rippling like the ocean. Seeing him in all his glory and forgetting himself, awestruck, wanting nothing more than to be swept away and stay beside him in his journey to the edge of the world. He'd abandon everything for that.

But Waver Velvet was gone, now. He should know that. And so was Rider.

He's about to turn to Ritsuka and Mash when he feels a twist of pain— real pain, blazing through his body. Panic— he was too careless and left himself wide open, and before he can even see what hit him, he crumples to the craggy floor.

As his vision fades, he knows he can't die there. He even doubts the wound is fatal. 

But he thinks of Rider, and thinks, "if this is where my life ends, perhaps it's alright."

**Author's Note:**

> first fate fic...! i have another one almost done and more ideas. not sure if i really delivered emotionally but...Hhhhhh horse. i hope it was enjoyable, sorry to destroy the mood with this note (but that's what i do.) sometimes i think about el-melloi II and just start crying. it's a curse.


End file.
